HRTPO to focus on road funding after summer break

At Thursday's Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization's board meeting, elected officials will discuss how to spend the region's share of state transportation funds.

This is the first time regional leaders have met as a board to discuss transportation needs after a summer recess. The Chesapeake meeting begins at 10:30 a.m.

Over the next 20 years, it's estimated that the funding provided by Gov. Bob McDonnell's signature transportation law will provide more than $5.5 billion for the region.

"We remain eternally grateful to the legislators who worked so hard to make this transportation funding a reality," said Hampton Mayor Molly Joseph Ward, Chairwoman of the HRTPO board. "I believe you will soon see all of the Hampton Roads elected officials work together to identify and break ground on projects of regional significance that will best relieve congestion."

Regional funding projections for the transportation law were recently adjusted, after an Attorney General's office ruling that Gloucester and Suffolk county are not subject to regional tax dollars created by the law.

According to an Aug.9 letter sent by Virginia Department of Transportation Chief Financial Officer John Lawson, to HRTPO Executive Director Dwight Farmer, over the next six years the region should generate $1.25 billion in funds through the use of sales and wholesale gas taxes.

HRTPO's board, comprised local mayors and other elected officials, will have to decide whether or not they intend to bond a portion of the funds received by the bill, and also which projects will receive funding first.

VDOT will give HRTPO's board an update on efforts to expand I-64 on the Peninsula, which the organization has made a major priority.

HRTPO's board has previously endorsed a vision that would expand sections of I-64 between Jefferson Avenue and Ft. Eustis Boulevard, a long time regional choke point that stands to get even more congested over the next two decades according to organization estimates, because of an increase of commercial trucks traveling on the road from the Port of Virginia.